On our second day in New Orleans, we went to a fortune teller.
In a small, cramped box of a shop stuffed with cheaply-made parasols and similar tourist-targeted miscellany, the man who would divine my future stood behind the counter, languidly drawing from a long, brown cigarette. He looked something like what I imagine John Waters would as a character in a Tennessee Williams play. Somehow, I found this reassuring, if not convincing.
We’d spotted the joint by chance, walking back to our hotel on St. Ann’s from one of our near-hourly misadventures, and it seemed a When In Rome sort of thing to do, like engaging in the town’s trademark gratuitous drinking and shameless exhibitionism. And why not, right? Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez — that’s what I say. Hell, that’s what the whole city says.
When asked, the fortune teller explained the different readings he could give. Twenty for a palm reading, twenty-five for Tarot, and so on. I chose the Tarot. I’ve always loved the eerie beauty and iconic simplicity of its imagery. The Hanged Man. The High Priestess. Swords, Cups, The Sun and The Moon.
The fortune teller pushed the tall bar stool beside him toward me, “Sit.” The cards fluttered almost invisibly between his palms, and were cast.
As I listened to him read the cards to me, my eyes wandered to the boyfriend, standing a respectful distance to my left, his face caught in an uncomfortable grimace. He’s always been leery of the supernatural in all its forms, both theatrical and (supposedly) actual, and I imagined this experience to be something like Chinese Water Torture for him. But there he was, enduring and solid and immovable.
When the reading was over, the fortune teller asked if there was anything else I would like to know, any questions I had.
“About love?” I asked.
He asked if I was in a relationship now. The boyfriend and I exchanged smiles. “Yes.”
“Something big is going to happen in February,” he said.
“February, huh?”
More smiles.
“Yes. Something solidifying.”
Giggling now.
I paid and thanked the man. The boyfriend and I walked out into the thick, heat-blasted New Orleans air together.
We kissed, teetering on the cobblestones. Then we laughed like children.
It was four o’clock on a Saturday and we were alone together, madly in love, in one of the greatest cities on earth.
I really didn’t need to have my fortune read, of course. I know exactly where I’m going.
